K Street eyes super committee

K Street wasted little time putting clients on notice about the next phase of the debt ceiling debate with a simple message: Nobody is safe from the super committee.

Lobby shops say a much-broader-than-expected range of budget cuts and tax provisions could be in play, especially compared with the relatively small group of industries that were afraid of getting a haircut during the earlier debt ceiling negotiations led by Vice President Joe Biden.

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And although the defense and health care industries have the most to lose from the way the debt ceiling bill is set up, that doesn’t mean everyone else can sit on the sidelines, K Street warns.

“While people are relieved the debt ceiling crisis is over, they see these dark clouds on the horizon that this is not the end,” said Mehlman Vogel Castagnetti’s David Thomas. “You would be foolish to not be actively lobbying and defending priorities over the next four months.”

Several lobbyists said they expect companies and industry groups to put a full-court press on Capitol Hill engaging grass roots, advertising and old-fashioned, shoe-leather lobbying to try to minimize the severity of the cuts.

How much influence K Street can have on the process is still unclear.

One Democratic lobbyist quipped that he was “preparing by writing 12 really large checks” as the best offense for helping clients.

But while members of Congress, K Street and aides were largely kept in the dark about what was under discussion during the Biden debt negotiations, lobbyists are optimistic that this process will be more transparent, if only because it is nearly impossible to keep 12 lawmakers and their staffs from talking.

“Everybody and their mother is going to be involved in figuring out what they need to protect, what they need to compromise on and what they can let go,” Holland & Knight’s Rich Gold said.

There are two weeks before congressional leaders must name their choices to fill the 12-member slate, but lobbyists already are gaming out how to influence committee recommendations to the panel and how they can protect low-hanging fruit like carried interest and oil and gas tax subsidies and the ethanol tax credit.

The medical and defense industries, which have been active during the debt ceiling debate, are expected to lead the lobbying charge, in part because they have the most to lose. If Congress is unsuccessful in passing a bill before the Dec. 23 deadline, an across-the-board cut largely targeting Medicare and Pentagon spending would be enacted.